Samsung Galaxy S Shines at New York Launch

From PC World: It may or may not turn out to be the game-changer Samsung says it is, but the Samsung Galaxy S, now in four flavors for four carriers, is indeed a top-shelf smartphone with an astoundingly vibrant screen that puts it in a class by itself-for the moment.

At a press event in New York Tuesday, Samsung showed off four versions of the unit: the Vibrant for T-Mobile, the Fascinate for Verizon Wireless, the Captivate for AT&T, and the Epic 4G for Sprint. Unlike the first three, which offer only a touchscreen, the Epic also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Omar Khan, chief strategy officer for Samsung Mobile, modestly called the Galaxy S, "the most significant achievement in the smartphone market... We're introducing a new standard to beat in 2010."

The phone features a brilliant 4-inch Super AMOLED screen that is indeed stunning, providing a bright, sharp, and clear display even in bright sunlight. In dark rooms the colors are rich and the contrast excellent without turning blacks into grays. According to Samsung, the unit's display offers a 50,000-to-1 contrast ratio.

In hands-on tests at the well-attended press event, the on-screen keyboard on the Vibrant for T-Mobile and the Epic 4G for Sprint were responsive and quick. Especially welcome is the Swype application for the on-screen keyboard. Instead of tapping keys, with Swype you keep your finger on the on-screen keyboard and drag it from key to key. Predictive software guesses at the word you're trying to spell. In anecdotal testing at the press event Swype came up with the correct word more often than not. In case of confusion, you're given a choice of words.

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